Third foreigner arrested in Phuket anti-overstay campaign

PHUKET: As part of a concentrated two-week drive to find and arrest foreigners overstaying in Phuket, Immigration Police this morning arrested another Briton for being in Thailand long after his permit to stay expired.

Immigration officials have been combing through records and identifying foreigners whose names appear in the computer as having arrived in Thailand but who do not appear as having left before the expiration of their permit to stay. Undercover officers are then going out and finding them.

This week a Canadian was arrested on Monday and a Briton on Tuesday.

Today it was the turn of another British citizen, Andrew Ross John Jasso, 33, found to have overstayed by three months in Thailand case.

Police did not have to go far to find him; he was arrested in front of the Phuket library at 9:30 am. The library is about 200 metres from the Phuket Immigration offices.

An Immigration officer told The Phuket News, “He had been working for a boatbuilding company in Chalong, but the owner closed the business and went back to Britain. Jasso stayed, living in a hotel in Phuket Town.

“This is not the first time he has overstayed. He was arrested before at Phuket International Airport for the same thing.

“We have handed him over to Phuket Town Police Station for more questioning.”